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Misplaced Priorities, again? Celebs, netizens renew criticisms as Manila Bay receives fresh dolomite sand coating amid the pandemic

TJ GacuraBy No Comments3 Mins Read

Amid the pandemic situation in the Philippines, a fresh coat of dolomite sand was placed on Manila Bay earlier on Tuesday, April 13.

This project is part of the Department of Environmental Natural Resources (DENR) Manila Bay rehabilitation program, which started way back in January 2017.

With COVID-19 cases continue to surge, the second dose of dolomite sand resulted in renewed criticism from celebrities and Netizens.

Comedienne Marietta Subong, popularly known as Pokwang, irked at the government prioritizing the second coat of dolomite sand rather than the pandemic in the Philippines.

She wrote, “Ang yaman-yaman natin woo-hoo! May pang retouch tayo ng dolomite!”

StarPop Label Head Roque Rox Santos agreed with Pokwang’s tweet. He sarcastically wrote that the Philippines is rich (in debt and corruption).

ABS-CBN journalist Karen Davila likewise ridiculed the government’s misplaced priorities. Davila stressed that many Filipinos are heavily affected by COVID-19. Furthermore, the DENR project serves as an insult to what should be more urgent during this time—a better and effective pandemic response.

ABS-CBN journalist Mike Navallo also scrutinized the dumping of fresh dolomite at Manila Bay.

Navallo wrote ‘Priorities’ to point out that this project is unimportant now since the pandemic is worsening.

Fellow Kapamilya correspondent Chiara Zambrano poked fun at the second layer of dolomite.

The journalist lauded a twitter personality for taking the time to create a parody video of BTS singing about the newly-added dolomite sand.

Last year, the government defended the controversial project of DENR. Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said the rehabilitation of Manila Bay is essential to improve the public’s “mental health” amid the pandemic.

“Sa gitna ng pandemya, kailangan din pangalagaan ang mental health. I think iyong pagpapasyal sa mga lugar kagaya ng Manila Bay na may white beach, hindi mo maku-quantify ang epekto niya pagdating sa mental health ng ating mga kababayan, ‘yung kapayapaan na mag-isip at ‘yung break.”

With the Secretary’s statement, actor Juan Miguel Severo threw some shade (to the government) as he “commended” their thoughtfulness for adding fresh dolomite sand on Manila Bay.

https://twitter.com/TheRainBro/status/1382007424022769664

Meanwhile, twitter personality Francis Baraan IV was “jealous” as Manila Bay got its second dose of dolomite.

On the other hand, all Filipinos have yet to be inoculated against the Corona virus. Baraan is also disgusted by how the government prioritized non-living things over human beings being infected and dying due to COVID-19.

Former PTV-4 host Jules Guiang tried to understand that the project had an allotted budget. However, Guiang highlighted that the Philippines is currently in a pandemic.

He then pointed out that political will is needed to pause the project and focus all the resources on fighting COVID-19.

ESPN sports anchor Aaron Atayde even weighed the project cost and how many doses of AstraZeneca vaccine the Government can afford—if redirected resources went to its pandemic efforts.

In September 2020, this DENR project was slammed by environmentalists and fisherfolk as the government agency used dolomite to ‘cover-up’ the polluted Manila Bay.

The controversial “Dolomite Beach” became a trend last year as many Netizens created memes to ridicule DENR’s program and its defense for the sake of Filipinos’ mental health.

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TJ believes in the saying, "Make your passion your profession," which made him dip his toes into any writing profession. He tried blogging, tried feature writing; he even dabbled into SEO writing. His heart, however, points into news writing.

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